Guild Wars 2

Nearing the 100g mark for a commander tag but I still have no clue whether I want my ranger or mesmer with the tag.

I play my ranger more, but I know my mesmer is probably more useful in terms of utility. (Since my ranger is a zerker build.)

Help me choose
:(

Whichever your able to stay alive the longest at the front with. If your in the back people are less likely to push forward.

the correct answer is guardian

Guardian is pretty much the default Commander, Warrior, Necro and Ele can also do well, I dont know of many engi, thief, ranger or mesmer commanders but that’s not to say they cannot work they are just not as common

also it depends on how you want to command and what type of group you are running with

I would very strongly recommend against running a berserker build on a commander as that icon will make you an even bigger target, alot of folks love nothing better than stalling a group by taking out the person with the commander icon

It’s really impossible to overestimate the amount of hate that’s going to come down on your head as a commander. If the enemy sees that commander buff, they suddenly get tunnel vision and will do everything in their power to take you down, regardless of whether that’s the right tactical decision.

To that end, the above posts are correct; You want the char you have as a commander to be the beefiest thing possible.

Mesmer is viable because they have so many tools for getting out of jams and for losing targetting, but most people do elect tougher classes like warrior, guardian, and necro.

Definitely not your ranger if you’re playing zerker.

Mesmer. Good at escaping when required with viable bunker builds you can run (useful as a commander) also… Portal bombs + veil. Need I say more?

… why would you choose ranger for anything?!?!?!

Anyway, ignoring the fact the ranger sucks, its all a matter how you want to command. The Commander dorito doesnt suddenly grant you the power of Greyskull and make you able to understand wtf Sun Tzu was babbling about. If you dont care and want it for small groups, you can be anything you want.

Zerker ranger is of course a waste of a class, but you can still command.

Mesmers work great in both small and large groups and the ability to support your own zerg with veil/portal is extremely good.

If you want random huge pug zergs, you probably want Guardian or Warrior. If nothing else, you need those blocks and immune when your own zerg flee behind you.

Don’t put your tag on a ranger as it is probably the weakest class in WvW within a zerg even if run the broken beastmaster builds that are viable 1v5. You will be focused to the high heavens, and as a commander you have one job – that is to stay alive while giving directions. Ranger is a poor choice due to its low survivability.

While mesmers are generally good at avoiding damage, certain skills like Staff #2 and Blink cause them to move in odd patterns which lead to your zerg getting disoriented.

I would advise picking a durable char like warrior or guardian that is able to charge right into the enemy zerg. BM ranger could be viable as well since they are very hard to kill.

The class is mostly irrelevant to the actual act of commanding. At the end of the day, you just need to survive as long as possible, and you can spec any class to do that.

If you’d like to supplement your commanding with a focused support function, then you’d want to give it more thought. As previously mentioned, a mesmer is more versatile with the veil and portal, although the ranger does have a water field on demand.

For commanding the perfect class is Guardian ALWAYS, if you don’t have one ranger in your case, but try guardian is much much easier, everyone with commander on other proffession that i know they switch to guardian commander when they can

Command with your high-survival characters, whichever class that might be. If you do use mesmer though, you probably don’t want to be the one dropping portals for pbombs cuz you’ll likely get pugs following you in lol

LordKael.7260:

Command with your high-survival characters, whichever class that might be. If you do use mesmer though, you probably don’t want to be the one dropping portals for pbombs cuz you’ll likely get pugs following you in lol

The best portal bombs I have seen are from Mesmer commanders. They always know where to drop em’ and not get killed.

It’s always a benefit that a commander can cast Veil, Portal, or Time Warp himself, instead of having to ask allies to do it.

If I had to choose between the two it would be Mesmer but don’t spec glass cannon!

My own personal choice would be Guardian / Necro or Warrior.